Openreach in major Lancashire recruitment drive

More than 40 trainee engineers will be hired across Lancashire as part of the largest recruitment drive ever undertaken by Openreach.

The announcement follows news that Openreach, will accelerate plans to build more ultrafast Fibre to the Premises (FTTP) broadband across the country.

The 42 Lancashire roles, part of more than 3,500 being recruited across the UK during the next 12 months, including 283 in the North West, will be located in Blackburn, Burnley, Fleetwood, Fylde, Lancaster, Lunesdale, Morecambe and Ribble Valley.

Trainees will join the UK’s largest team of telecoms engineers working to expand, upgrade, maintain and install new services over Openreach’s national broadband network.

Openreach’s ‘Fibre First’ programme will deliver expanded ‘full fibre’ FTTP networks in up to 40 towns, cities and boroughs, setting it on a trajectory to reach ten million British premises by the mid-2020s.

It has committed to making FTTP available in three million British homes and business by the end of 2020 and, if the conditions are right, intends to go significantly further, bringing the benefits of FTTP technology to the majority of homes and businesses in the UK.

Clive Selley, chief executive of Openreach, said: “These trainee engineers will be playing a vital role in the future success and prosperity of the UK. Over the last year our 22,200 engineers have been the driving force behind Government reaching its target of making ‘superfast’ broadband available to more than 95 per cent of the country, whilst also improving our customer service performance – but we want to do more.

“Every day, Openreach engineers are working in all weathers across the length and breadth of Britain, connecting homes and businesses and making sure people can access the high quality broadband services they need.”